Featured Research

Air pollution, gone with the wind: Proposed new building guidelines to clean up the air we breath

Date:

November 1, 2012

Source:

Concordia University

Summary:

As urban populations expand, downtown buildings are going nowhere but up. The huge energy needs of these skyscrapers mean that these towers are not only office buildings, they're polluters with smokestacks billowing out toxins from the rooftop. Our cities are dirtier than we think. New research just might clean them up.

Share This

As urban populations expand, downtown buildings are going nowhere but up. The huge energy needs of these skyscrapers mean that these towers are not only office buildings, they’re polluters with smokestacks billowing out toxins from the rooftop.

As urban populations expand, downtown buildings are going nowhere but up. The huge energy needs of these skyscrapers mean that these towers are not only office buildings, they're polluters with smokestacks billowing out toxins from the rooftop. Our cities are dirtier than we think. New research from Concordia University just might clean them up.

Related Articles

By examining the trajectory and amount of air pollution from a building to its neighbours downwind, Concordia researchers Ted Stathopoulos and Bodhisatta Hajra have come up with environmentally friendly building guidelines for our modern cities. This provides a much-needed update to the industry standards developed decades ago by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers -- the international technical society that sets the rules for building ventilation.

Stathopoulos -- a professor in Concordia's Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering -- partnered with emerging researcher and recent Concordia graduate Hajra to pen the study, recently featured in the peer-reviewed journal, Building and Environment. To perform the research, they hunkered down in Concordia's cutting-edge wind tunnel laboratory, a huge underground research facility which allows engineers to test the atmospheric dispersion of pollution and toxins in any given setting.

"We created model configurations consisting of buildings of various sizes and shapes," says Stathopoulos, an inveterate researcher who was awarded the Davenport Medal by the International Association for Wind Engineering in September 2012.

Hajra, who received his doctorate during Concordia's fall convocation on October 30, goes on to explain: "we then placed our models downwind of a building that was emitting toxins to trace the path from polluter to polluted. That allowed us to see how much pollution was being absorbed by buildings downwind and where on those buildings that pollution was most concentrated."

Their findings show that the process by which air pollution spreads from one building's exhaust stack to another's intake is affected by the height and spacing between buildings, something that can be optimized by architects and engineers as new towers are constructed.

What does this mean for the future of downtown buildings? "We came up with three main guidelines for the placement of stack and intake in order to minimize the amount of air pollution that makes its way into downwind buildings," says Stathopoulos.

First, intake vents on buildings downwind of a polluter need to be placed upwind of that building's stack, and closer to its more sheltered wall. Second, air intakes should not be placed on rooftop locations downwind of a low stack and the protected wall of the emitting building. Lastly, increased spacing between buildings can reduce the possibility that pollutants from one will be re-ingested by another.

"While our research may not reduce the amount of outdoor pollution in our cities," explains Stathopoulos, "it can certainly help ensure that this same dirty air is not re-circulated indoors."

Concordia University. "Air pollution, gone with the wind: Proposed new building guidelines to clean up the air we breath." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 1 November 2012. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121101131607.htm>.

Concordia University. (2012, November 1). Air pollution, gone with the wind: Proposed new building guidelines to clean up the air we breath. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 31, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121101131607.htm

Concordia University. "Air pollution, gone with the wind: Proposed new building guidelines to clean up the air we breath." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121101131607.htm (accessed March 31, 2015).

Featured Research

Mar. 31, 2015  As the five-year anniversary of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig approaches, a new report looks at how twenty species of wildlife are faring in the aftermath of the ... full story

Mar. 30, 2015  Researchers have identified a new source of methane for gas hydrates -- ice-like substances found in sediment that trap methane within the crystal structure of frozen water -- in the Arctic Ocean. ... full story

Mar. 30, 2015  A new study reports that marine ecosystems can take thousands, rather than hundreds, of years to recover from climate-related upheavals. The study's authors analyzed thousands of invertebrate fossils ... full story

Mar. 30, 2015  By studying the morphology and physiology of plants with tiny conical "hairs" or microfibers on the surface of their leaves, such as tomatoes, balsam pears and the flowers Berkheya purpea and Lychnis ... full story

Mar. 30, 2015  The 2000-2003 drought in the American southwest triggered a widespread die-off of forests around the region. A team of scientists developed a new modeling tool to explain how and where trembling ... full story

Mar. 30, 2015  A new study has confirmed the existence of a positive feedback operating in climate change whereby warming itself may amplify a rise in greenhouse gases resulting in additional ... full story

Mar. 30, 2015  Analysis of 20 years of satellite data has revealed the total amount of vegetation globally has increased by almost 4 billion tons of carbon since 2003. This is despite ongoing large-scale ... full story

Mar. 30, 2015  Warming winters have allowed mountain pine beetle outbreaks in the coldest areas of the western United States, but milder winters can't be blamed for the full extent of recent outbreaks in the ... full story

Solar Impulse Departs Myanmar for China

AFP (Mar. 30, 2015)  Solar Impulse 2 takes off from Myanmar&apos;s second biggest city of Mandalay and heads for China&apos;s Chongqing, the fifth flight of a landmark journey to circumnavigate the globe powered solely by the sun. Duration: 00:42
Video provided by AFP

Related Stories

Jan. 27, 2015  SINPHONIE, an EU-funded research project on indoor air quality in EU schools, and its impact on children's health, has recently published its conclusions. Based on the evidence gathered, the ... full story

Apr. 18, 2014  The effects of future heat waves on people living in Greater London in 2050 has been modeled in a study, which concludes that the risk of heat-related deaths could be significantly reduced if ... full story

Jan. 6, 2014  A new idea to cut back on air pollution: spray water into the atmosphere from sprinklers atop tall buildings and towers, similar to watering a garden. In an article published, a researcher suggests ... full story

June 5, 2013  The Clean Air Act of 1970 caused a rebound in rainfall for a US city. Scientists analyzed summer rainfall data from nine weather stations in the Atlanta metropolitan area from 1948 to 2009. They ... full story

Mar. 23, 2011  On hot days it is often very still in cities because the high density of buildings prevents the air from circulating freely. In a newly commissioned wind tunnel, wind effects and thermal situations ... full story

ScienceDaily features breaking news and videos about the latest discoveries in health, technology, the environment, and more -- from major news services and leading universities, scientific journals, and research organizations.